2019´s Review
Dear Treefluencers,
Thank you for helping us grow in the last year. We launched our web shop, successfully conducted our second crowdfunding for our bathrobe, went to different events and fairs, had our launch party, won an award, had two appearances on the TV, held presentations in front of some important people and the list just goes on and on. So, we thought it would be time to give you a little review of our last year’s journey.
Back in Portugal
After going to the biggest international trade fair for home textiles the Heimtextil in Frankfurt last January, we went back to the north of Portugal to visit the lovely people who craft our towels. We didn´t just choose them because they have an eco-friendly production. They have been specialized in terry production for generations and on top of that pay higher wages and provide their workers with benefits like longer parental leaves and even psychological assistance. It´s a pleasure for us that we found such great partners, who are both transparent in their work and now have become real friends.
Green Product Award
In March we won our first award in Munich! The Green Product Award is an international award that provides a platform for manufacturers, design studios and agencies that distinguish themselves with their products and services in terms of design, innovation and sustainability. The products were presented at the International Trade Fair for Handcrafts in Munich. With 125,000 visitors & 2500 square meters of space for the presentation of green products, the "Green Campus" is the largest green marketplace in Europe.
The first shipment arrived!
You probably can imagine how super excited we were about our first real towel shipment! Even the German television RTL joined us to make a tv report. After such a long development, the crowdfunding and so many preorders, it was the greatest feeling seeing so many of your babies being delivered and shipped to people from Sweden, Singapore and all the way to Argentina.
Launchparty
After all that hard work we of course had to celebrate with both our customers and everybody who has helped us. Our launch party "Kusheln mit Anfassen” was so much fun and it was especially nice to meet people you have had contact with online and then meeting them in real life 😊 Both inside and outside the hot tub.
First Reviews and Feedback
After the shipment it was the moment of truth for us, as we now would get our first wave of customer feedback and reviews. We knew that we had developed a high-quality towel, but it is hard to tell how your customers will react to the product. Luckily the towel kept its promise and we had a minimum in returns and a lot of customers who were really happy and even order more towels afterwards.
The Bathrobe Crowdfunding
OMG! We never expected so much love for our crowdfunding campaign for our bathrobe on Startnext. We got funded in just one day and ended up with 432 supporters. Thank you again for all the support, your patience and the lovely feedback you have already sent to us! A special thank you goes out to Arseny Preobrazhenskiy who did a great job filming and cutting our crowdfunding movie, to Aline for another great modelling job and of course Niculai for the great pictures. Last but not least - Thanks to Krombacher Naturstarter who put 20% on top of the total amount we raised in this campaign.
New Product Pics
It is not the easiest job to shoot nice picture of towels ;) So we would like to say thank you to Liquid Photography for your great work!
#IamHybrid
In the meantime, we were asked to participate in the #IamHybrid campaign for Toyota. Yes, it´s about cars and we all know that mobility is a huge problem for our environment. We also discussed it for some time, but from our perspective, the hybrid technology is the "less bad" alternative and they have made great efforts to push this technology. You can have a look at the full clip here
Planting trees!
We planted some more trees in our forest in Klövensteen! Together with our sustainability auditor the Klimapatenschaft, we participated at their annual tree planting event. It is nice to see how this event is growing from year to year and especially all the kids who have joined in. We are already looking forward to this year’s edition. You can find more information about this event here
Green Friday
Last Black Friday we decided to do a Green Friday campaign and together with you we were able to plant an extra amount of 3388 trees in one long weekend! Thank you for this.
The Press loves Kushel
A big thank you to all the magazines, newspapers and tv-stations who featured us and our mission! We are very grateful about all the positive feedback and the lovely editors that we had the chance to meet. A special shout out goes out to Geraldine and Sarah from AWAKE Communications for their amazing work.
Kushel in stores
Since we started many shops have asked us for towels and thanks to our new colleague Christin we have now our first three retailers. It´s so nice to see our towels in shop windows. At the moment you can get our towels at GoodBuy in Berlin and at MYMARINI and Nhoia in Hamburg. And there are more to come 😊
Treefluencers
No matter if sharing, liking or posting - the support we are getting from you keeps us going. So, without much chit chat… THANK YOU! Because without you we would be nothing.
Thank You!
Together with you and our partners Trees for the future, Plant for the Planet and Klimapatenschaft we achieve to plant more than 85403 trees. We never expected to grow so fast and we are very happy, that our concept of a positive consumption works.
We are looking forward to 2020. We will work on new products, new cooperation’s and more fun doing the best job we can.
Thanks for reading and have a relaxed start of the year,
sincerely yours, Jim, John & Mattias from Kushel.